MORE INFOTo sign up for an upcoming Livestrong support group, email the Y's wellness director, Jessica Fernandez, at jfernandez@longmontymca.org.

LONGMONT -- The bucket list got a thorough rewrite once Angela Larson was in cancer remission.

Gone were the superfluous goals like meeting Oprah and driving fast cars.

Instead, Larson rewrote the list, adding a much-belated honeymoon to Scotland and family vacations. She returned to school and is working on a master's degree in instructional technology at Regis University. She hopes to one day teach.

"The truth is I might go sooner than you, but I have a whole different perspective on that. I'm going to live life to the fullest while I have it," she said.

Getting to that point, though, has been a journey.

The 41-year-old Longmont mother of two was diagnosed in September 2009 with stage four ovarian cancer. Surgeons removed the 16 pounds of tumors from her intestines and performed a hysterectomy. And then Larson completed five months of intense chemotherapy.

But it wasn't even that part -- the invasive surgery, the grueling chemo or even the hair loss -- that proved to be the hardest.

"Nobody anticipates having a cancer diagnosis. There is no preparation for that. But I think, for me, the hardest part was dealing with the survivorship. There's a lot more (to) surviving cancer than getting the illness out of your body," she said.

Eventually, the outpouring of support starts to recede. Once your hair grows back and the color returns to your cheeks, people expect you to push "play" on a once-paused life.

It's not that easy.

"A lot of people describe it as a new normal. Something is off of its axis. Things are distinguishable, you can recognize your life, you recognize the elements of your life, but you don't quite fit into it the same," she said.

Larson is one of six cancer survivors participating in the Livestrong program, which the Y began offering in November. The 12-week support group helps cancer survivors transition to a new sense of normalcy. The first group ended sessions Friday, and another group is scheduled to begin meeting this week.

"It's really kind of a gap in service -- a specific program set for people that have survived cancer," said the Y's senior director of healthy living, Jessica Fernandez. "There's nothing else like it in the area, in the region."

Angela Larson, 41, and her son Nicholas, 12, prepare a dinner of green beans, salmon, farro and salad in their Longmont home Tuesday. Larson has changed her eating habits after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2009.
(Greg Lindstrom/Times-Call)

In April, the Y was awarded a $3,500 grant from the Livestrong Community Impact Project to start cancer support groups. The program is offered at about 85 Ys in the country, but the Longmont Y was the sole YMCA in the state to be funded.

The Longmont Y sent three staff members to Chicago for training, including fitness instructor Maryam Moore, who now runs the program. Moore's uncle, Kesha Rizzolo, died in April 2012, shortly after he was diagnosed with acute leukemia. That, she said, motivated her to work alongside survivors.

"Livestrong people are survivors. When they get on a treadmill, they're gonna fight it out," Moore said.

The first group met twice a week for 90 minutes to try new exercises -- Qigong, spin class, free weights. They also worked with a nutritionist. Sometimes, they just talked.

Many cancer survivors have to relearn to trust their bodies and find the confidence to even step inside a gym, Moore said. As part of the Livestrong program, participants receive a free membership to the Y for the duration of the program.

Moore recalled one session that was scheduled to be a weight machine workout. The group started sharing stories about their cancer journeys, and that ate up the entire 90 minutes.

And that was OK.

"The emotional support outweighs the agenda," Moore said.

And for many in the group, there's nothing like another survivor.

"It comes in when they're physically challenged because they have a chemo port. They understand when somebody cannot stand because there's a nephrostomy (urine collection) bag. They understand surgical sites," Moore said.

Angie Holdaway, 71, participates in an exercise class for cancer survivors Feb. 12 at the Ed & Ruth Lehman YMCA. The Ed & Ruth Lehman YMCA received a grant from Livestrong to start a small, pilot program to help cancer survivors ease back into -- or in some cases, start -- exercising and eating healthy. A big part of the program focuses on teaching people to "re-trust" their bodies not to fail, according to Maryam Moore, who runs the support group.
(Lewis Geyer/Times-Call)

'Accept where I am now'

The friendly, intimate support group has the kind of camaraderie that forms from having survived similar trauma. They swap recipes and tips and share in triumphs and losses. When one of the women learned she'd have to return to chemotherapy, the group decided to move up their post-graduation potluck so she could attend.

During a class Feb. 11, high-energy music blared in a gym at the Y as Moore demonstrated a series of five moves intended to work the entire body.

"Find your rhythm. Find a rhythm that's challenging for you, that works for you," Moore called out as the group exhausted their abdominal muscles.

And then something happened.

One of the participants, Patti Vohs, abruptly left the class, tears streaming down her face. Another trainer followed her, grabbing a few tissues on the way out of the gym.

Outside the gym, Vohs sat at a table with the trainer, her feet up in a chair.

She later explained what happened.

"I so much wanted to be able to do all of that, and I knew physically, I couldn't," said Vohs, who competed in triathlons before she got sick.

In 2004, doctors diagnosed Vohs, then 24, with a rare form of pancreatic cancer. The next nine years would bring 24 surgeries that cut out two feet of intestines. Now with chronic pancreatitis, she has good and bad days, and still struggles to keep down food.

She looks like a typical 33-year-old woman, but her body is malnourished and doesn't absorb nutrients properly. Dizziness and weakness are common. Just a few weeks into the Livestrong program, a tumble down the stairs left Vohs with a broken foot, and doctors think malnutrition played a role in the break.

Once the class was over, one woman stopped at the table Vohs was sitting at and checked in.

"I was worn out today," Vohs explained. "I pushed myself through the one set and I was done."

"I'm sorry. I know how you feel. We all have days like that," the woman offered, prompting Vohs to nod in agreement.

Those kinds of interactions -- especially from people who get it -- make a world of difference, Vohs later said.

"They're been there. We've all struggled with something, so when I push that little bit, they notice," she said.

She said the group has given her the push she needed to get off the couch and dip a toe back into working out. It's also taught her to accept the limitations her body has imposed.

"This is my body. I have to accept where I am now and I have to look at where I was a year and a half ago," she said.

'Push your limit'

Ironically, it was the chemotherapy -- a cancer treatment that often leads to loss of appetite -- that prompted Angela Larson, the 41-year-old mother of two, to put on extra pounds.

"During chemo, at least for me, the only thing I could eat was bullion and Cream of Wheat, and with that, you don't get a lot of nutrition in there," she said. "And the doctors are constantly, 'Well, eat this. Anything that you can get down, anything you can keep down, it's good, so just eat, eat, eat, eat, eat.' And you get into this routine of eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, and suddenly you're not in chemo anymore, and you're just eat, eat, eat, eat, eating."

Part of her struggle was even finding low-fiber, no-dairy foods she could eat. Surgery removed a portion of her cancer-ridden intestines, and some abdominal muscles, and Larson now wears a colostomy bag to collect bowel waste.

"It sounds absurd, but you're basically learning how to live in your own skin again," she said.

Larson's 15-year-old daughter, Eliza, recalled when her mom tried to morph into Super Mom after the cancer. Any activities she or her 12-year-old brother, Nicholas, wanted to do, their mom made happen. Their mom admits she was determined to go 110 mph, to do everything, to make up for lost time.

Lately, though, things have slowed down, and Larson credits the Livestrong group for that.

"It was the Livestrong that helped me say, 'OK. Stop. It's OK. Just breathe,'" she said.

Her kids have noticed.

"I noticed she has a lot more energy recently, and she's a lot happier," Eliza Larson said on Feb. 26 while helping her mom prepare a dinner of baked salmon, salad, lima beans and farro.

There have also been other changes. Before starting the program, Larson said she wasn't comfortable stepping into a gym or fitness class.

"It was probably a little bit of pride, probably a little bit of uncertainty and maybe a little fear thrown in there of, 'Oh, will they be able to help me? Am I going to be able to modify this? What's going to happen if I pass out or have to suddenly leave?'" she said. "And being part of the Livestrong group was definitely a support group of people that get it. We don't have to explain to each other when our energy levels just suddenly plummet, or our coordination is off, or we don't have balance."

Next up on the bucket list is a half-marathon. Larson has scheduled a trip next January to run the Princess Half Marathon at Disney World. Her goal is to finish in under three hours.

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